In Europe the sea generally retreated at the end of the Miocene, leaving in the north only Belgium and a small part of northern France under water. In England the sea advanced upon the land; while in the Mediterranean region large areas remained submerged, as in Spain, Algeria, nearly all of central and southern Italy and Sicily, and Greece. In this region volcanic activity was intense, and Aetna, Vesuvius, and the volcanoes of central Italy had begun their operations. Germany has no marine Pliocene, but extensive areas of fluviatile and other continental deposits belong to this epoch; especially famous are the stratified sands of the Eppelsheim basin, called Dinotherium sands, which also occur in several other parts of South Germany. In the lower Main valley are Pliocene lignites, the plants of which are nearly one-half Conifers, but also include many American trees, such as Walnuts and Hickories. Continental Pliocene, containing the same land mammals, occurs in many separate areas of southern Europe and Asia Minor, Mt. Leberon in the south of France, Pikermi near Athens, the island of Samos, which was then part of the continent, and Maragha in Persia, are all celebrated localities of the older Pliocene, while the newer Pliocene fauna is found in great abundance in the river deposits of the lower Arno valley in Italy {Vol d'Arno stage). Over the region of the great Sar-matian Sea of the Upper Miocene were numerous bodies of brackish water, in which lived shells much like those which now inhabit the Caspian.

On the south side of the Himalayas, in northern India, are several thousand feet of sandstones and conglomerate, with some clay and lignite, formed principally from the piedmont accumulations transported from the Himalayas during the Pliocene, though probably the process of accumulation began in the Upper Miocene. These deposits now make the Siwalik Hills, famous for their fossil bones; and similar deposits with the same fossils occur in Borneo, and probably Java, which then were connected with Asia. In South America a Pliocene transgression of the sea took place, submerging the entire eastern coast of Argentina and Patagonia (Parand, or Cape Fairweather stage) and .along the line of 470 S. lat., at least, extending to the foothills of the Andes. The marine Pliocene beds were involved in the last upheaval of the southern Andes.